It's wonderful to write a reflection post feeling the warm glow of inspiration and motivation again. I think I needed to have the comparison between the two units to fully appreciate how visual exploration negatively affected my desire to create and motivation for the course as a whole. I feel enthused again, aching to learn more, and willing to open a sketchbook for the pleasure of it over simply using it to get coursework done.
I'm really pleased that I sought to push each exercise that little bit extra, trying to take myself to a place where I was more likely to grow or confront my process. The danger of that of course would have been that I ended up out of my depth or falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. So I am pleased that I was better able to appreciate the exercises as learning experiences, and allow myself to move on.
The coursework
The gorilla sketching exercise was particularly useful in teaching me to go past what 'is'. It reminds my of some advice my GCSE art teacher gave me when painting from a photo reference. To paraphrase, he told me at some point you need to put the photo away paint in the context of the painting itself. I can see that now in the gorilla sketches. There came a point where my visual memory mixed with my visual voice, and the images took on their own life. I didn't simply feel comfortable with leaving the reference behind, I felt liberated by it.
I've really enjoyed experimenting with the combination of physical and digital approaches. My tutor gave me some really helpful feedback in the use of textures. It was cool to see her recommendation of Retrosupply for digital textures. I don't actually work in the Adobe ecosystem, so can't use the packs for Photoshop nor Illustrator. However I have pretty much all the packs for Affinity and Procreate, so I think I feel more comfortable using those more in my work now. I've held back in the past feeling like I would make my work too generic or overly stylised in the mid-century aesthetic. I also really enjoy the packs from True Grit Texture Supply and Frankentoon. I think it will be fun to explore this more.
My tutor noted
"I know your instinct was to go for a narrative scene, but with the concept of ‘less is more’ it would have been good to see you tackle the simplicity of the simple objects rather than creating a scene"
In retrospect, I definitely concede the point. In looking at the work of other students I think I was trying too hard to do something different rather than appreciate the learning outcome of the exercise. In doing this I made my life hard for myself. I would like to come back to this exercise at a later stage and take it at face-value. My tutor later prompted me to
"consider how you might have tackled it using traditional media. Would it have been as easy to complete? What media do you think would be most suitable? Would it have affected you colour choices?"
This was also helpful, it gives me a starting point when I come back to this exercise. This kind of feedback is exactly what I need, it encourages me to come back and explore rather than leaving me feeling ashamed.
My Assignment
Overall, I am actually pleased with how the assignment played out, despite the frustration. It's useful for my tutor to reinforce the fact that, despite it being an assignment, it's ok for it not to work out as planned. Or even be wholly successful - as she noted,
"The learning is in the process."
I like the idea of bringing more freedom into my line work. When I did the Graphic Fiction unit I found that I have some aptitude for mark making with finer lines, however I don't really have the patience to embrace a style that requires careful and time-consuming precision. I wonder if there is a space, then, where I can have the expressiveness of brush-based ink but with tools that I can effect better control?
This was certainly on my mind going into part two, and I tried to factor that into the reportage work by using a variety of different pens.
I have also never really indulged using markers in my work, so that might also be an avenue to explore in my sketchbooks as a way of not just adding colour but also to take on board my tutor's suggestion to use coloured lines (which I infer means over and above simple colour holds in the digital comic context).
I'm really pleased that my exploratory approach worked well, and it's nice to have that affirmation from my tutor to quash any doubts I might have had. I was intrigued by my tutors call-out about one of the developmental images being successful in its own right. Looking at it in an isolated way, I can see how it works. She mentioned a Studio Ghibli palette, and I also get the feeling of Herge and other ligne claire illustrators. I cross-referenced this image with others from artists I admire who have a line-based approach. The things I noticed those works is how they simplified their images by removing detail and complications. From the reader's perspective those images didn't suffer, as the mind's eye fills in the details. This is something I should consider more when composing my images.
I'm also pleased to report that my resilience has indeed improved. I have not dwelled on the less successful aspects of the assignment one minute more than has been necessary, instead enthusiastically throwing myself into part two of the unit. I still want to come back to re-work this assignment at a later date. More as a challenge to utilise the skills I continue to develop, I'm enthused and determined rather than bitter! That's a big change for me, and it makes me happy!
Feedback
One thing I wanted to note in my learning log is how much I appreciated the style of feedback from my tutor. Before the course started I communicated what I had learned about how I best receive and respond to feedback. I am not sure if this influenced my tutor's approach or not, but I am thrilled with the feedback I received. Yes, the content was certainly nice to hear, but specifically the communication style worked well for me. My tutor has a knack for 'seeing me' and perhaps appreciating the nuances of my self-talk and perspectives. She's been able to take anything learning to the negative side and reframe it back to me in a way that encourages my growth mindset. Additionally, she's been able to give me clear and actionable feedback and prompts in a way that encourages me to run with the ideas rather than impose her own process onto mine. I am sincerely grateful!
One specific point of feedback was on my use of sketchbooks. Typically I include my work in my log posts, but she noted that I hadn't submitted any more generalised sketchbook work with my assignment. I had a think about this, as it caused a little bit of internal conflict for a brief moment.
There is an aspect to this where my relationship to sketchbooks is very perfunctory. I treat them as tools to solve problems with, so by-and-large they are used mostly as part of my coursework (which gives me the most problems to solve!).
The other aspect was a feeling of guilt for not using my sketchbooks, a brief feeling like I was not meeting expectations. And slight resentment that I was being forced to use them in a way which doesn't fit with my creative process.
The last aspect I thought about was the slow wasting of my skills and motivation to engage with my sketchbooks over the course of the Visual Exploration unit. That also meant losing the parts of my sketchbook habit that I actually enjoyed.
So my response to this feedback has been to take it as an opportunity rather than a dictate. To reclaim the parts of sketchbooks I have missed. To keep using them as tools for solving problems; and also to give myself extra-curricular problems to solve. One of the things I am struggling with right now is drawing in a way that is loose, energetic and dare-I-say irreverent! I am a total geek and yet I never do anything like fan art, because doing that is copying someone else's idea. It not 'proper' enough.
But there is is a BIG part of my brain that wants to do that. Especially to create scenes and characters for my roleplaying games. I need to connect these two parts. So I am going to do some self-directed work to explore those skills. I also wonder if there is a good way to connect my interests to my art as part of my critical review. I should explore this more with my tutor.
My tutor had a good suggestion to record my thoughts about why I select certain images as part of a Visual Diary. As I mentioned, I don't use sketchbooks as a journal, which is why I use Pinterest. I am not sure how to combine the written context with the image, and any manual process to making a visual diary will never be sustainable with my ADHD. This is a problem I need to keep working on.
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